"3d. That they in no case shall interfere with the primary disposal of the soil by the United States in Congress assembled, nor with the ordinances and regulations which Congress may find necessary, for securing the title in such soil to the bona fide purchasers.
"4th. That they shall be subject to pay a part of the federal debts contracted or to be contracted, to be apportioned on them by Congress, according to the same common rule and measure by which apportionments thereof shall be made on the other states.
"5th. That no tax shall be imposed on lands, the property of the United States.
"6th. That their respective governments shall be republican.
"7th. That the lands of non-resident proprietors shall, in no case, be taxed higher than those of residents within any new state, before the admission thereof to a vote by its delegates in Congress.
"That whensoever any of the said states shall have, of free inhabitants, as many as shall then be in any one the least numerous of the thirteen original states, such state shall be admitted by its delegates into the Congress of the United States, on an equal footing with the said original states; provided the consent of so many states in Congress is first obtained as may at the time be competent to such admission. (And in order to adapt the said articles of confederation to the state of Congress when its numbers shall be thus increased, it shall be proposed to the legislatures of the states, originally parties thereto, to require the assent of two-thirds of the United States in Congress assembled, in all those cases wherein by the said articles, the assent of nine states is now required, which being agreed to by them, shall be binding on the new states.) Until such admission by their delegates into Congress, any of the said states after the establishment of their temporary government shall have authority to keep a member in Congress, with a right of debating, but not of voting.
"That measures not inconsistent with the principles of the confederation, and necessary for the preservation of peace and good order among the settlers in any of the said new States, until they shall assume a temporary government as aforesaid, may from time to time, be taken by the United States in Congress assembled.[146]
"That the preceding articles shall be formed into a charter of compact ... [provision for promulgation] and shall stand as fundamental constitutions between the thirteen original States and each of the several States now newly described, unalterable ... but by the joint consent of the United States in Congress assembled and of the particular State within which such alteration is proposed to be made."
b. The Northwest Ordinance (July 13, 1787)
Journals of Congress (1801 edition), XII, 58 ff.